Islam and Education in the Modern Era: Social, Cultural, Political Changes and Responses from Islamic Education

Abstract

Islamic education in the modern era has been at the crossroad of globalization, rapid economic development, social changes, and resurgence of rival religious ideologies. Islam as a global force has affected other forces and has affected by them, and along the way the Islamic education has changed to adapt to the realities of the modern world. Such adaptation is the reflection of the diversity across the Muslim world and heavily influenced by the domestic factors and on the other hand by the nature and extent of the linkage to other global forces. Despite the contextual variations and diversity changes within the Islamic education in the modern era have certain features in common: (a) affected by the new socioeconomic development and changes within the civil society; (b) affected by the realities of the modern state and governance; (c) influenced by the cultural (traditional/religious) factors and political climate; and (d) affected by the international factors. Despite the variations, Islamic education reform across the Muslim world has one thing in common: all have lost the grandeur and glory of the past, they are struggling to meet the demands of a competing world, and they exist in the margin of a strong formal education system.There are endavors to synchrone traditional approaches and contents of the Islamic education with those of the formal education to inhibit or enhance the chance for the accreditation of the religious education across the Muslim world. This has partially resulted in internationalization of the institutions of Islamic education and tailoring the curricula to add new subjects such as foreign languages and natural sciences to accommodate the global discourse and attract new groups of students internationally.